Motion Picture Classic (Jan-Jun 1929)

■y SOMEHOW, the Hollywood heavens have had their bri liance dimmed. The Western stars are missing from the I firmament. And the absence of their warm, colorful rays, leaves great, open spaces in the cinema skies. Perhaps they are but temporarily obscured by the cloud of sound which lowers over the screen. Perhaps the thunder of the talkies has, for the time, sent them out of the reign. For it is difficult to believe that the mighty affinity between the American plains and American pictures is threatened with permanent dissolution. Since the very birth of photodrarna, these two have clung together. The progress of pictures may be traced along the trail blazed by Westerns. From the tumultuous days of "The Great Train Robbery" and Broncho Billy Anderson, rangers have ridden through a million miles of movies. They have borne the brand of the U. S. A. from Ypsilanti to the Yangtze, from the Rio Grande to Tierra del Fuego. Every motion picture milestone has been marked by a Western. "The Great Train Robbery," "The Covered Wagon," "In Old Arizona" — epics all. Yet the stars have vanished like the loves of yesteryear. Fred Thomson has galloped on to the Final Round-up. Only Silver King remains. Awaiting a gallant rider who will never return. William S. Hart, old Two-Gun Bill himself, sits all alone oiling up the antiquated forty-fives against a studio call that never comes. Buck Jones is bound for Africa. No more redskins bite the dust when Hoot Gibson's six-guns bark. His steed is now an airplane. 60 Ken (parries ©n ] He's The Last And Lone Champion Of The Legend O f O u r West By HERBERT CRUIKSHANK When he gives her the gun, it's high among the clouds. Tim McCoy, adopted son of the Sioux, has discarded his buckskin shirt for an iron one. The brave Colonel is bowing low over the dainty hands of European beauties. Jack Holt's gone sassiety-drammer. Tom Mix, the jet black of his Indian locks greyed with eighteen years of movie-making, has saddled Tony for the long, long trail of vaudeville. Rex Bell, Tom Tyler, Art Acord, Yakima Canute, Buddy Roosevelt — all the rough riding Romeos of filmdom have somehow slipped into the limbo of oblivion. "Gone, all gone, the old familiar faces." Y Still in the Saddle ET, one of this dashing, heroic band still carries on. Like the sole survivor of a Modoc massacre. Ken Maynard remains to tell the tale. Mounted on Tarzan, he still pilots brave bands of picture pioneers through Death Valley, over the Santa Fe trail, across unknown wildernesses peopled with painted savages, and drought and hunger and hardship. The little band of adventurers need have no fear, for Maynard will arrive in the nick of time. The mail must be carried through. The robbers of the Wells-Fargo express box will be tracked to their lair. The mustached villain shall not win the girl. Nor shall the mining claim of her poor old father be stolen by the city slicker. Bring on your redskins! Bring on your greasers! Bring on your schemers from the effete East! Bring 'em by squads, companies, regiments, battalions! Bring the whole dam' army of villains! Tom may be two-a-daying; Hoot, chasing butterflies through the altitudes; Buck, roping rhinos in the Tanganyika jungles, Colonel Tim, whispering sweet nothings to sefioritas, mam'selles, signorinas, frauleins and flappers; Jack, dolling up for some dude role. But, thank God, the women and children are not left without a protector. The tomahawk and scalpingknife shall not remain in bloody supremacy. The little settlement shall not be reduced to a smouldering ruin. {Continued on page go)